


Painstaking

by andrewsarchus



Category: Neverwhere - All Media Types
Genre: Arson, Curtain Fic, Gen, Harm to Animals, Harm to Curtains, Harm to Everything, Harm to People, Implied Flensing, Murder, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrewsarchus/pseuds/andrewsarchus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't buy new curtains without killing a few people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painstaking

"This," said Croup, "is unacceptable."

Vandemar looked up. There was a narrow incision in the side of the rat he was holding, and a trail of intestine extended from there to the table, where the end of the intestine was fastened in place by a thumbtack. "It's a fresh rat," he said, a bit hurt.

"Indeed it is, Mister Vandemar," said Croup, looking down at his work. "An entirely fresh rat, and an entirely poignant, if perhaps somewhat trite observation on the state of mankind."

"Trite?" asked Vandemar.

"I am afraid so, my dear cohort," said Croup. "It is customary to lay out some morsel, perhaps a piece of cheese, leading the unfortunate rodent to unwind itself in an attempt to get at a treat. It is, to some extent, an analogy for mankind's self-destructive tendencies."

"Haven't got cheese," said Vandemar, picked up a nine iron, and jumped up onto the table.

"Ah," said Croup. There was a swoosh, a thump, and then the thud of the rat hitting the far wall. "A perhaps somewhat more apt analogy for the activities in which I intend for us to engage."

"So what's unacceptable?"

"These!" said Croup, whirling back to the window through which he had been looking. The central courtyard of the hospital beyond was a dank and horrid place, littered with broken furniture, broken glass, and other broken things, some of which had been there before Croup and Vandemar had taken up residence, others of which they had provided themselves.

"I thought you liked the courtyard,"

"I have nothing but the fondest regard for that little patch of earth and sun, Mister Vandemar. It lightens my heart to gaze upon it, and all the little things which live within its confines."

"Briefly."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Live briefly in it, I mean," said Vandemar. "Because I kill them."

"Correction cheerfully admitted," said Croup. "Kill them you do, with your customary skill and verve. But to continue the main thrust of my argumentation." He picked up a walking stick, and smacked it sharply against the beige venetian blinds which hung half attached to the top of the window frame. They had never been particularly lovely pieces of interior decorating, and what damage had not been done by years of neglect had been more than made up for during the tenure of Croup and Vandemar. Earlier that week, a visitor from Earl's Court had made a desperate attempt to flee through the windows, when the blinds had been down, and as a result, they were all askew, slats sticking out at every imaginable angle.

"These are unacceptable. They cast a pall upon our entire chamber, Mister Vandemar. They make this room look small and shoddy, and by reflection, they diminish us."

Vandemar pulled another rat from his pocket, and considered the room, as it tried to squirm loose. Floor of cracked tile, drop ceiling with fluorescent light. There was the wall with the splots of blood and bits of rat, there was the dissection table on which their visitor from Earl's court still bled and breathed, there were the various tools and implements, and there was the sink in the corner, with the wide brown stain on its sides which might have been, but which definitely wasn't, rust.

"I think it looks nice," he said, taking a bite of the rat.

"Perhaps it does, Mister Vandemar," said Croup. "And it will look a good deal nicer when we have some proper curtains. They will lend an air of distinction to activities which otherwise seldom trascend the mundane."

"The night market?" asked Vandemar.

"No," said Croup. "I believe that the time has come for a visit to London Above." He walked over to the dissection table, and the ruin which had once been a man.

"Kill me," it said, in a desperate bubbling gasp. "Please. Please, I beg you."

"Of course, my good man," said Croup, and a knife materialized in his hand. He leaned over, and made a series of blurringly swift cuts.

"Please," it said.

"In due time," said Croup, giving it a pat on the cheek. He considered the eyeball he had extracted, balanced on the tip of his blade, and flicked it towards Vandemar, who caught it, and swallowed it down. "Now," said Croup, "if you've completed your breakfast?"

"There's still plenty of rat left," said Vandemar. "Would you like some?"

"Much as I appreciate the offer," said Croup, "I believe that to the extent which I could be said to hunger, it is for a different sort of fare." He took his raincoat down from the coat rack, and donned it. Vandemar shrugged, and followed suit. "Shall we, then?" asked Croup, turned on his heel, and headed out. Vandemar followed.

#

"I'm sorry," said the young man behind the counter. By the nature of things, people from London Above didn't know who Croup and Vandemar were, but the man seemed unnerved. Vandemar took another bite from his rat, and considered why. And what sort of sounds the man would make after Vandemar reached down his throat and pulled out his lungs. He looked like a squeaker, but looks could be decieving. Maybe a slosher. Better than a fainter, anyway.

"It is simplicity itself," said Croup. "We have come here to purchase curtains. This shop, I believe, is a place where curtains are sold. While I realize my requirements are perhaps somewhat out of the ordinary, money is genuinely no object. If you--"

"Out of the ordinary!" the man yelped. He definitely didn't know Croup. Nobody who knew Croup interrupted him. Vandemar considered what it was that had made him so nervous. Perhaps it was the raincoats.

"You want white curtains decorated with streaks and spatters of brownish red,"

"And elements of brown, green, yellow and black," said Croup.

"Maybe in a week, we could find a colorist who might--"

"Look!" barked Croup. "This is very simple." He turned, grabbed a handful of white curtain, whipped it out over the counter in front of them. "I want you to take these, and dye them in the fashion I have described to you in entirely painstaking detail. And then we shall leave."

"But this is just a shop!" said the man. "We don't have dyes or paints or—"

"I think that you will find you do," said Croup.

"You have to look within," added Vandemar. "I'll help." And, for the next while, he did.

#

As they left the shop, carrying the awkwardly folded bundle of curtains, Vandemar turned to Croup. "Money is no object," he said.

"Indeed it was not," said Croup.

"It means that you're not going to pay anyway."

"Very often indeed," said Croup. "That is very often my meaning when I utter that particular phrase, Mr. Vandemar."

"And painstaking?" asked Vandemar.

"As a matter of connotation and etymology, I am afraid it merely denotes one who is taking pains, that is, going to great lengths, or going to excruciating detail. But I will express nothing but my highest admiration for the angle you took with that particular phrase."

Vandemar opened his mouth to ask another question, and Croup held up his hand. "Yes," he said. "Excruciating means exactly what you think it means, though the meaning may have been diluted of centuries of casual use. Perhaps at our next stop."

"Back in the hospital?" asked Vandemar. "I think the one we have there'd fall apart if I tried it."

"I believe he would," said Croup. "But no. I fear I was overly hasty in my selection. These curtains are going to have to be cut down if they are to be any use.

#

The sign outside the tailor's shop advertised "alterations" along with coats, uniforms, and other odds and ends. At the moment, it seemed like the tailor regretted putting that on his sign. A bit too late for that, anyway.

"I can do it, yes," he said. "But these are ruined! Is this blood?"

"It is mostly blood," said Croup. "It is also other things."

The tailor looked up, looked Vandemar in the eye. Vandemar looked back, gave him a cheerful smile. He liked the tailor.

"Is it human?" asked the tailor. It sounded like he didn't want to hear the answer.

"Assuming that the object of your question is the blood and other fluids, they are mostly human in origin, yes," said Croup. "I fear that my associate may have added a bit of his breakfast to that, which is to say that some of the spatters come from rat, pigeon, cat, and . . . was that a starling, Mr. Vandemar?"

"It was a sparrow," said Vandemar. "And a small dog."

"Quite," said Croup, and he turned around to face the tailor. "We have gone to a great deal of trouble with these curtains, sir," he said, "and I hope, for your sake more than mine, that your lack of appreciation of our efforts on that front is not matched by a lack of dexterity with thread and needle. I have given you the measurements, and I expect the work done."

The tailor was afraid. Vandemar could smell that, along with curry, bitters, the half-pack of cigarettes in his pocket, the mice in the skirting boards, and the pigeons nesting in the eaves. But even so, the tailor faced Croup, and asked, "and if I don't?"

"We kill you and everyone else in the shop," said Vandemar. "Then we burn down the shop."

"I see," said the tailor.

"For the moment, you most certainly do. But do you work?"

The tailor picked up his shears, and though they shook, he cut straight.

#

The fires from the tailor's shop made a cheery glow behind them, as Croup and Vandemar returned to London below. "He didn't ask what would happen if he did do the work," said Vandemar.

"Indeed he did not, Mister Vandemar, an oversight he doubtless regretted, whilst he still retained that capacity. I will also note, though not as a criticism, that while the blood eagle is an artifact of a proud and ancient tradition, it is not related to the use of the cross as an implement of torture."

"No," said Vandemar. "But it seemed the thing to do."

"I can well say that it is," replied Croup. "It was not quite the blaze of a viking funeral, but close enough." He held up the curtains, and considered them. "And, similarly, these are not quite what I had in mind when we set out, but I should have to call them close enough as well."

Vandemar reached into his pocket, and pulled out a roll of skin, still bloody from when he had taken it from the tailor. He found the center of the curtain, and pushed it into place with the tacks he had been using on the rats.

Without the bones behind it, the tailor's face wasn't quite as friendly. But the bushy eyebrows were still there, and the bristly white mustache. "I like having a smiley face man," he said, "makes things cheerful."

"Exactly the touch, Mister Vandemar. Exactly the touch it needed."

They went back together into the shadows. "Errands done, we can now enjoy the rest of the blessed," said Croup. "Of course," he added, "I may need to be fitted for new trousers before too long. Unless some other pressing business emerges."


End file.
